Honey Gourd

In Ilocos Norte, families train squash vines along the narrow earthen dikes between their rice paddies, so the same water feeds both crops. Honey Gourd is the one Luzviminda Agbayani’s family has grown there since at least 1960: tan, bell-shaped and heavy, with deep orange flesh that tastes of honey and roasted nuts.

Nothing is wasted. The young shoots and flowers are cooked as greens long before the first fruit ripens, and the seeds are roasted as a snack. The seed we save is the seed that is left over.

We grow it on the dikes between the rice. It feeds us while the rice is still green.

Moschata squashes shrug off heat and insects that defeat other squashes, and Honey Gourd is among the toughest. It is also the seed on the front page of this library, cracking open, because it is the one that has never once failed to come up.